Through some miracle of weather, the FOB was not sweltering and unbearably hot as it had been over the past few years. Of course there had to be a downside to the balmy temps and that was very strong wind. Not only could I not use my parasol for shade, (it was turned inside out no less than ten times before I gave up in despair) but my perfect hair quickly became disheveled and not-so-perfect and I had to hold onto my hair flower to keep it from blowing away. The wind was so strong at one point it was knocking over recycling bins. Lucky for me it died down before my signing and I was able to smooth out the tangles and make like I was that perfect the whole time.

Meanwhile, I spent my entire book budget at Hi De Ho Comics on this gorgeous book of vintage fetish art by 50’s comic artist Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman.

It was great to see all my friends and fans. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth.

After the signing I kidnapped Victor Gischler and dragged him off for dinner. I pride myself in being up on where to eat and I know dozens of great places on the east side. But put me west of La Brea and I’m as lost as Gisch, chow-wise. So we drove aimlessly, headed towards the ocean and looking for inspiration. It wasn’t until the last minute that I remembered Chez Jay’s. A classic old-school dive that seemed like just the ticket, and it was.

Later that night, I finally had a chance to catch up on Strikeforce. The whole card was good, but I really wanted to see the Cyborg vs. Akano fight. It was kind of like watching a cute little woodland creature get hit by a truck. Don’t get me wrong, Akano really gave it everything. She had a lot of guts and heart and she didn’t just cover up and run, but she was outweighed by nearly 10 pounds and keep in mind, this is after Akano had to gain just to make 145.

That being said, I can’t wait for Cyborg vs. Carano.

Still have lots of items left on the to-do list. I fly to NYC first thing tomorrow morning.

Edited to add: Photo here. (Scroll down!)

What do Ronnie James Dio and I have in common? We’re both interviewed in the latest issue of Swedish rock magazine Top Secret. (Scroll down down down to check out my pages.) I think I’m in love with the word “pulpdeckarförfattarinnan.” (Take that, spellcheck!)

The to-do list is rapidly devouring my life. For today: first, make final clothing decisions for Edgar Week and finish packing. Then, after a long day of pre-Edgar girl tech at the beauty parlor, I’ll be braving Friday rush-hour traffic to hit the Mystery Bookstore pre-Festival of Books party tonight from 5-9pm.

Also, a reminder: I’ll be signing at the Mystery Bookstore booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books tomorrow, Saturday, April 25 from 4pm - 5pm, along with Jan Burke, Victor Gischler, Michael Koryta, Robert Masello and George Mastras. The booth is #411, located in the northwest corner of Zone D, Booth Series 400.

I’ll be signing at the Mystery Bookstore booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on Saturday, April 25 from 4pm - 5pm, along with Jan Burke, Victor Gischler, Michael Koryta, Robert Masello and George Mastras. The booth is #411, located in the northwest corner of Zone D, Booth Series 400.

Endless flu notwithstanding, I’ll be signing tomorrow, Saturday April 19th at 4pm with Kathryn Lilley and Sue Ann Jaffarian at

Metropolis Books
400 South Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
213-612-0174

I seem to have moved into the Elephant Man phase of this nasty little bug. By that I mean that my chest is now so bubbly and liquid-filled that I can’t lie flat or I’ll die. On the bright side, my cough has become much more productive (eeeeeeew!) which I hope means that this shit is finally breaking up.

So, since sleep is pretty much out of the question and sitting up is the only way to be comfortable, I might as well be sitting at my desk, catching you guys up on my recent travels.

My Chicago trip was short but sweet. My signing at Centuries and Sleuths was pretty modest. The staff was great and even though only two legit readers showed up, my personal peeps came out in force so a great time was had by all. I walked away from that one with a copy of Chicago Blues, which seemed entirely appropriate.

That night I went out to the north side to hang with savagesinister and savagemutha. When I arrived at their apartment, I was immediately greeted with a golden shower. No really, the moment I walked in the door, yellow liquid started gushing out of the ceiling. A quick phone call to the landlady upstairs revealed that her kids had overflowed the toilet. Apparently no effort had been made to correct this little problem and as a result, peewater was leaking from the ceiling of Chad and Alex’s bathroom. Nice. Luckily it was all uphill from there.

We had a really fantastic dinner at Mia Francesca. The carpaccio was a standout, tart and lemony and thin enough to read through. I also had a really complex and unusual bouillabaisse that had an almost middle eastern flavor (cumin, maybe, and a little bit of cinnamon) and profiteroles filled with pistachio gelato. Good call, Alex!

From there it was off to the Cobra Lounge where we met up with Marcus Sakey and his charming wife. In spite of my ridiculously full belly, I still allowed myself to be talked into trying the Cobra Lounge’s famous tater-tots, affectionately known as crack-tots because of their addictive quality. They’re fried in bacon fat and as a result they are the tastiest, crispiest, most perfectly realized expression this humble American side. I won’t even go into detail about the debauched and animalistic behavior that resulted from the consumptions of those crack-tots. I will simply offer the following photographic evidence.





Enough said.

That was my catch all excuse for everything at Left Coast Crime in Denver. Even though I’m now much closer to sea level, I figure I’ll just keep on using it. So that’s why, other than saying how seriously jazzed I was to meet Donna Moore, I’m gonna cop out for another day or two before I do any kind of serious posting on the various incarnations of my blog.

I will say that I’m reading and signing tomorrow at 6:30pm at:

Latitude 33 Bookshop
311 Ocean Avenue
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
Tel: 949-494-5403

Looking forward to seeing all you beach bums and other residents of that mysterious land behind the Orange Curtain.

I’m off to Chicago in a few hours. This tour has been pretty hectic but I’m trying to keep a stiff upper lip. Took a little time off last night to hang with my pop. We watched the gorgeous Criterion disk of Billy Wilder’s pitch black classic Ace in the Hole. Man what a nasty, wonderful movie that is. If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to.

Looking forward to chowing down on some serious Italian food and hanging with savagesinister and savagemutha, along with any other Chicago peeps I can manage to drag out on a school night. Not looking forward to icy wind, freezing rain and doing more time on those germ filled steel habitrails in the sky.

Come out and see me at Centuries and Sleuths if you’re in the hood. If not, I’ll type at you when I get home on Monday.

I'll be signing at Centuries and Sleuths 7419 W. Madison St. Forest Park, IL 60130 at 2pm on March 2nd. If you're not too hung over from Saint Paddy's Day drinking, come on over and see me.

I’m lagged and exhausted, but I’m home. Instead of composing a long post about my trip to New Orleans, I’ve posted three new flickr sets. One of the French Quarter, one of my amazing dinner/signing at The Delachaise and one of my visit with PZB, birding in St Bernard’s Parish and my heartbreaking tour of the Lower Ninth Ward.

Apparently Houston is not just an airport, as I had originally assumed. I'm posting from the "Business Center" of my Holiday Inn, spitting distance from Murder by the Book where I'll be signing with Megan Abbott at 4:30 this afternoon. I'm starting to feel that deep creeping travel exhaustion, but I'm tough enough to fight it off for one more day. After that I plan to sleep for a week. I'll probably wake up just in time to fly to Chicago next weekend.

I'm here in the French Quarter, posting from an internet cafe. It's been a great time so far. Turtle soup and etouffee with PZB last night at The Bon Ton Cafe and several entertaining encounters with the Divine Stupidity of New Orleans. More on that later.

Then I woke up this morning to torrential downpour and a tornado watch. I still managed to slog through the monsoon to buy an au lait from the unfazed Vietnamese ladies over at Cafe Du Monde. Lucky for me I had the forsight to bring a hunky chewtoy along on this trip so I have plenty to do while stuck in the hotel.

Tonight is my little shindig at The Delachaise, so come on over, get out of the rain, and laissez les bon temps Roulez!

I’m home now for a few days. Home and gone, home and gone, that’s pretty much the routine for the next month or so. I’m trying to blog when I can, but most of the time I’m either running a thousand miles an hour to try and keep up or passed out in an exhausted heap.

Anyway, here’s the latest:

The March issue of Penthouse containing my interview will be available on newsstands on the 19th. I always hate phone interviews because the things I say never seem to come out quite the way I meant. For instance, I definitely didn’t mean to sound like I don’t like strong female characters in film or books. Anyone who follows this blog knows that’s not true at all. I was just on my usual rant about how I hate what passes for “strong” female characters (i.e. fake, skinny superheroes) and I was trying to say I wanted Angel to be a tough but realistic character but somehow it came out sounding totally wrong. Almost like I wanted her to be ultra girly and not strong at all. Ah well, that’s what happens when I don’t get to edit myself. It’s still a nice two page spread (not THAT kind of spread!) and I got a mention on the cover, too. I’m particularly amused by the fact that I got two pages and a cover mention while Big Steve King only got a sidebar. I guess I’ve really made it now! Either that, or I have better tits.

I’m leaving on Tuesday night for New Orleans. This one will be more of a vacation than work and I’m mostly planning to spend time with docbrite eating, bird watching and just being in that unique and amazing city. However, I am doing one semi-work-related event while I’m there. I’ll be having a modest book party next Thursday evening, the 21st of February at chefcdb’s restaurant The Delachaise. We’re planning on offering some little tasty treats and a unique cocktail created especially for the occasion. There will also be some dinner specials elaborating on the hardboiled pulp theme and (if all goes well) books available for signing, courtesy of Garden District Book Shop. I’ll post more when I know more. If you’re in the area, stop in for good reads and good eats.

Then, on Saturday the 23rd at 4:30 pm, I’ll be signing with Megan Abbott at Murder by the Book 2342 Bissonnet St Houston TX 77005 (713) 524-8597

No rest for the wicked.

I’m here in Seattle with Sue Ann. Yesterday was a blast. The signing at the Seattle Mystery Book Shop with Marcus Sakey was fantastic. All three of us posted about it on their blog. Sue Ann got some great photos so I’ll link to them when she is able to put them up.

The B&N signing was not as well attended. Actually let me rephrase that. The store was twice as crowded but no one seemed particularly interested in us. I was able to lure in a few stray guys when Sue Ann suggested I start reading, but I was only able to read a few paragraphs in that PG crowd. In the end we didn’t sell as many books as the pet psychic who was up right before us, but we did sell a few so it wasn’t a total bust. We also did a drive by to sign store stock at another B&N on our way to the real event of the evening, our date at the Zig Zag Cafe with Vince Keenan and his lovely wife Rosemary. We lured the unsuspecting Sakey into joining us, along with Kim (apologies if I’m misremembering your name) from the Seattle Mystery Book Shop. A lurid good time was had by all.

It’s only the second round and I’m already winded. I leave tomorrow for Seattle. Back on Monday and then it’s New Orleans and Houston. Then Chicago. Then Left Coast Crime. Then NoirCon. I’ll post the specifics when I get back from this latest trip but my point is, I don’t know how some writers do this kind of thing all the time. I get exhausted just looking at my day-planner.

I’ll have my laptop on the road and will post when I can. If you’re in the Seattle area, I hope you’ll come out and see me at one of these events:

2/9 12-2pm Signing with Sue Ann Jaffarian. and Marcus Sakey. at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop 117 Cherry Street Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 587-5737

4-5pm that same day I’ll be reading and signing with Sue Ann at the Barnes and Noble at 18025 Garden Way NE, Woodinville, WA 98072 (425) 398-1990

2/10 12-2pm Signing with Sue Ann at the Barnes & Noble at South Center Mall, 300 Andover Park W Suite 200 Tukwila, WA 98188 (206) 575-3965

Well video actually, but that doesn’t have the same snappy alliteration. These two clips are from my Q&A at Partners and Crime in NYC, courtesy of Ron from galleycat.

Incidentally Sue Ann Jaffarian. and I had our first joint reading at the SinC meeting yesterday. We read from each other’s work and talked a little bit about the whole cozy vs. noir thing. It was a lot of fun and I think we’re really gonna have a blast on the rest of our “Naked Ladies” tour. Next stop Seattle. We’ll be at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop (117 Cherry Street Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 587-5737) on February 9th from 12-2pm and hope to see you there.

Angelenos, come out and celebrate the release of MONEY SHOT and THUGS AND KISSES with me and Sue Ann Jaffarian, 5pm tonight at The Mystery Bookstore 1036-C Broxton Avenue Los Angeles (Westwood), CA 90024 (310) 209-0415

The reading at KGB last night was a blast. Pretty big crowd, lots of friends both old and new. Today was lazy and nice, mostly reading and trying to catch up on email and sleep. I’m feeling seriously jetlagged but still pretty jazzed about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, of course is the big shindig. The first of my bi-coastal book release bashes, the one here in NYC at Partners and Crime Bookstore . I was amazed to hear that they had to place a second order of MONEY SHOT for the party because they had already sold out of the first lot.

It looks like all the prep is in order, booze and snacks and all that, so all I’ve got to do is girl up and show up. Hope to see you there.

I’m in NYC now, having arrived at the ass-crack of dawn after an extremely bumpy red-eye flight filled with babies and kids. The only thing that saved me from going ballistic and trying to make a Molotov cocktail using my 3 ounces of mouthwash was Donna Moore’s wicked, brilliant and hilarious send-up of hardboiled PI novels GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET. Although I don’t advise that you read it on a night flight because people were giving me serious stink-eye when I couldn’t stop laughing out loud. Luckily I was mostly drowned out by the terrified toddlers.

Yesterday morning I had a lovely breakfast with Darren at the Nob Hill Grill and then went to get a broken nail repaired. If anyone tries to tell you that I knocked over a bottle of red nail polish all down the front of the nice Vietnamese nail lady’s white shirt, it’s a totally outrageous, malicious, bald-faced lie. Glamorous, suave divas like me never do that sort of thing. The rest of the afternoon was spent thrift-shopping with Megan, Allison and the very gracious Sara Gran, who has apparently forgiven me for being such a snarky bitch about COME CLOSER on this blog. I valiantly resisted buying anything more than a vintage handkerchief with a pattern of books that could have been owned by the naughty bookstore girl in THE BIG SLEEP.

The Noir City signing was a smashing success. They had copies of MONEY SHOT which was a nice, unexpected surprise, and they also sold out, an even better surprise. Tonight is my reading with Ardai at the KGB bar. See you there!

Made it to San Francisco without incident, despite the monsoon. I’m still not sure why I bothered to sit under the dryer at the beauty parlor for an hour and a half yesterday. Nature. Sheesh! What’s a girl to do?

First order of business, Angkor Borei. It was just as amazing as I remembered, although I was sad that the lovely Chinhan was not there. Darren, Pam and I went there straight from the airport. We had the stuffed spinach leaves (of course) cold Cambodian noodles (of course) and I also ordered Prahok, the same ground pork and fish paste dip that we had at Hak Heang, as a comparison. It was much lighter, both in color and in weight, slightly sweeter and a little bit more, I don’t know... Western-friendly maybe. The fermented fish paste flavor was more subtle, though still too strong for Darren. It was still quite delicious, and came with a wider variety of fresh vegetables. Dessert was black sticky rice with mango and coconut cream. Mmmmmmm!

Then I caught REPEAT PERFORMANCE with Joan Leslie, a strange and apparently very rare supernatural noir in which a woman shoots her husband and then is given a chance to live the year over and try to fix what had gone wrong. It was odd for a lot of reasons, but mostly because you just can’t fathom why on earth she’s so hell-bent on saving her marriage to that loser. Must be a 40s thing. It did have a great trio of male leads, including Richard Basehart in his debut role, and knockout gowns by Oleg Cassini (Mr. Gene Tierney, as Muller referred to him.)

From there it was out with Megan, her pal Allison, Cornelia Read and Busted Flush’s David Thompson to a dive boxing bar called the Hara, staffed by avid hardboiled mystery aficionado Carl Kickery. He’s a character and a half, made famous by Muller as the guy who said “Women mystery writers suck!” We figured a posse of beautiful, bad-ass hard-writing broads like us could gang up on him and make him see the light. Don’t know if we did or not but we sure had fun trying.

Today is the HELL OF A WOMAN signing, but unfortunately I’m going to miss the films. It’s killing me to miss The Prowler, and I really wanted to see Muller’s film, but I gotta make a redeye for NYC.

Here is a rundown on the signings, readings and other book related events I’ll be doing in the next month or so:

(apologies for the wonky formating- you can see a clearer version here)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

1/26 Signing HELL OF A WOMAN
6 pm as part of the NOIR CITY film festival at the Castro Theater, 429 Castro St San Francisco, CA 94114 (415) 621-6120

NEW YORK, NY

12/27 Hard Case Crime Reading
7pm at KGB bar, 85 E 4th St New York, NY 10003 (212) 505-3360

12/29 NYC MONEY SHOT Launch party
7pm at Partners and Crime Bookstore ,
44 Greenwich Avenue (corner of Charles), New York, NY 10011 (212) 243-0440

LOS ANGELES, CA

2/2 LA MONEY SHOT/THUGS AND KISSES “Naked Ladies” Launch Party
with Sue Ann Jaffarian. 5pm at The Mystery Bookstore 1036-C Broxton Avenue Los Angeles (Westwood), CA 90024 (310) 209-0415

2/3 Sisters in Crime reading
with Sue Ann Jaffarian.
Sue Ann and I will be reading from each other’s novels and talking a little bit about the cozy/harboiled dichotomy and why readers are so passionate and fiercely divided on this subject.
2pm inThe Community Room of the South Pasadena Library, 1115 El Centro South Pasadena, CA 91030

2/5 "How to Get Your Writing Published"
7:00-8:00 pm at the Redondo Beach Public Library, 2nd Floor Meeting Room, 303 N. Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach 90277

SEATTLE, WA

2/9 12-2pm Signing with Sue Ann Jaffarian. and Marcus Sakey. at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop 117 Cherry Street Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 587-5737

4-5pm that same day I’ll be reading and signing with Sue Ann at the Barnes and Noble at 18025 Garden Way NE, Woodinville, WA 98072 (425) 398-1990

2/10 Signing with Sue Ann at the Barnes & Noble at South Center Mall, 300 Andover Park W Suite 200 Tukwila, WA 98188 (206) 575-3965

Don't say I didn't warn you!